2025-10-31T18:59:53Z
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Tom Occhino, currently serving as the Chief Product Officer at Vercel, stands as a seasoned authority in the domains of artificial intelligence, open-source innovation, and modern software engineering. His professional history includes more than a decade at Meta, where he played a key role in building React—a remarkably influential and widely adopted framework that revolutionized the way developers construct interactive web interfaces and applications. Through his hands-on efforts and leadership, React became a backbone of modern web development, shaping the practices and tools used by millions of developers worldwide.
Occhino was among the first technology leaders to acquaint the author with the concept of what he calls “disposable apps”—a novel paradigm made increasingly feasible by the rise of intelligent coding assistants and AI-driven development tools. Services such as Vercel’s own v0 have dramatically lowered the technical and financial barriers to software creation. As a direct result, crafting an application no longer requires extensive infrastructure, long-term planning, or a large upfront investment. A developer can now design, test, and deploy an app rapidly, use it for a specific short-term purpose, and then discard it without hesitation once its value has been fully realized. This shift reflects a fundamental change in how software is conceived: the cost of experimentation has dropped so significantly that ephemerality itself can become a productive design choice.
In illustrating this phenomenon, Occhino offers several real-world examples of “throwaway apps” he has encountered over the past year. For instance, some users simply paste data sets—like CSV files or spreadsheets—into the v0 environment, which instantly transforms them into functional and visually interactive dashboards. This enables quick insights and data exploration without the need for a permanent tool. During a recent hackathon kickoff event at Vercel, another participant used v0 to compile all the key information about the gathering into a temporary application that served as a concise and interactive reference for the team. In yet another case, Occhino’s wife took a planning document for a European vacation she was organizing with friends and turned it into a custom travel app—complete with structured day-by-day itineraries, tailored to their needs for that single trip.
Occhino himself has built several disposable apps for his own use. Among them is a simple yet ingenious web utility designed to help him keep count of everyday objects, such as the number of light switches installed in his home or the number of workstations at Vercel’s offices. The tool, while straightforward, demonstrates the empowerment AI tools grant to developers, enabling them to create niche, personalized utilities whenever needed. Another application he created provides instantaneous information about his current location, accessible wherever he happens to be and at any time he requires it—a portable, self-built companion that offers context-specific convenience on demand.
Although the conceptual premise of these creations is disposability, Occhino acknowledges that a few of these applications have become part of his regular toolkit. When asked why these specific tools remain publicly accessible, he explains, “I actually use them regularly, so they’re not really throwaway anymore.” His reflection encapsulates the evolving nature of software itself: tools born from spontaneity can, through repeated use, earn a form of permanence.
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Sourse: https://www.businessinsider.com/disposable-apps-ai-makes-coding-easier-vercel-2025-10
